Shabbat Shekalim (“Sabbath [of] shekels”) takes place on the Shabbat before the 1st of the Hebrew calendar month of Adar, and is one of the four 4 special Shabbatot surrounding Purim and Passover to help …

Our Torah portion this morning describes that glorious moment in time when the Israelites, just having been emancipated from Egypt, cross the Red Sea in such a miraculous manner that it caused Moses, Mirijam and …

אחת שאלתי מאת־יהוה אותה אבקש שבתי בבית־יהוה כל־ימי חיי לחזות בנעם־יהוה ולבקר בהיכלו׃
One thing I ask from the Eternal, One thing I desire:
That I may dwell in the house of Adonai all the days of my life,
To behold the graciousness of the Eternal,
And to enter His sanctuary.
Psalm 27.4

Please allow me to go back for a moment to our Torah reading from yesterday:

During Jethro’s visit to the Israelites camp, he notices a long line of people waiting to bring their disputes before Moses. Sitting alone from morning until evening, Moses listens to each argument, hears each problem, and states his judgment on each situation brought before him.
Jethro is astounded:“What is this thing you are doing for the people?” he asks Moses.
“Why do you act alone, while all the people stand about you from morning until evening?”

Noting that Jethro was deeply upset with Moses, Rabbi Fields quotes an ancient sage who suggests that what disturbed Jethro was not Moses appeared overworked – but that Moses had become full of self-importance. Moses, he says, was “behaving like a king, who sits on his throne while all the people stand.”

The Torah is – as I have mentioned several times before – an important guideline for every one of us. One of its goals, to my understanding, is to form a just society. The Torah forms out of a group of slaves a nation of priests, serving God and all humanity. There is a massage for every one of us, as we are all to some degree slaves to something, and we will hopefully become once all these cohanim, priests, the Torah envisions us to be.

And so it doesn’t come as a surprise that the Torah is raising the question of leadership several times. As much as the Torah leads us to a society founded on the ideal of equality and democracy, it does not undermine the need of a strong leadership, as long as it is to the benefit of the people. And that is why Jethro criticizes Moses so harshly right in the beginning of his leadership.

The quote for our induction from the 4th book of Moses, Numbers 27.16 and 17 underlines this idea. This time it is Moses, who asks God at the end of his leadership to appoint a new leader, a good shepherd for the Israelites “who shall go out before them and to come in before them”.

“Both instructions of the Torah teach us that leadership has always been a serious responsibility. Caring for the safety of a community and preserving its culture and traditions are complex tasks. Jethro appreciated the need to share the burden, and the interpreters of his advice to Moses – defined for us the qualities of leadership – required by Jewish tradition.” (Fields)

And so I pray to God, as we both, Rabbi Margolis and I, are entering the leadership of this community that we will meet the standards our tradition has set for us, that we will be wise in our leadership like the old Moses, and always sensible to the need of our people, you all, like Jethro.

Shabbat Shekalim (“Sabbath [of] shekels”) takes place on the Shabbat before the 1st of the Hebrew calendar month of Adar, and is one of the four 4 special Shabbatot surrounding Purim and Passover to help us prepare physically and spiritually for those holidays. Traditionally every adult Jew was requested to contribute a half of a Biblical shekel for the upkeep of the Tabernacle. This tax was due by the 1st of Nisan, meaning in a month from now. In later times – as we can understand it from our Haftarah – the donation was used for maintenance of the temple. Today we can understand it as a contribution to the infrastructure of a community. The building and maintenance of a Synagogue for example. As the Israelites contributed to the building of the Mishkan, the tabernacle, we are still today asked to support our communities.

But we shouldn’t make the mistake to understand it only as a donation of money. This is one way of support, but Silver and Gold are only placeholder/symbols for other things we can give. It can be a cake for a Bracha, help when something needs to be prepared or done in the Synagogue or the visit of people who are sick. Sometimes, “just coming to the prayer services” can be a big contribution. Today, I think, the giving of TIME is one of the most valuable offerings we can give to our community.
Thank you all. – Rabbi Adrian M Schell

Our Torah portion this morning describes that glorious moment in time when the Israelites, just having been emancipated from Egypt, cross the Red Sea in such a miraculous manner that it caused Moses, Mirijam and the people to break out in song …a song that gives this Shabbat the special name of “Shabbat Shirah” – the “Shabbat of song.” It was a song of such significance that it is actually recited in some traditions every morning in the Shacharit service.

The song begins with glorious words of praise to God. The first verse tells us:“Ashirah L’Adonai ki goa gaa – I will sing unto the Eternal for He is
highly exalted.”
The second verse tells us:
“Zeh eili v’anveihu – This is my God and I shall exalt him.”
But then comes the third verse with the shocking, almost incomprehensible words,
“Adonai ish milchamah Adonai shmo – the Eternal is a man of war, Adonai is His name.”

God a man of war? This seems to contradict everything we traditionally say about God. War and God, this looks like an alien concept. “O’seh shalom bimromov – May He who makes peace in the heavens
above make peace for us and for all Israel.” Or “Yevorecha Adonai v’yishmercha – May the Eternal bless you and
keep you … may He bless you with peace …” Countless times, it is God whom we turn to in the name of peace. Indeed, in the Talmud we are told that God’s name is Peace.

But still, “Adonai ish milchamah”, God a man of war, even so?

I am sure, I mentioned the following mashal, an analogy, already once before: To me the Torah is like a good old Bagel. You know: the donuts with the big hole in the middle. A bagel is only a bagel because of this hole. No hole, no bagel. And this is somehow true for the Torah as well. The Torah works only, because it shows us all the aspects of life without sparing the downsides. War, famine, hate are as much part of this world, as peace, prosperity and love. For me one of the most important messages of the Torah is that we shouldn’t have unrealistic dreams of a world without darkness, rather to learn how we can cope with the reality, and to keep the scale between good and bad a little bit more on the good side. A just society acknowledges that bad things happen, and evil exists, without giving up.

And here we come to understand what that difficult verse: “Adonai ish milchama” – “God is a man of war” may mean. The Israelites have just experienced in a wondrous, spectacular manner how God has taken them out of the land of Egypt. They have suffered enough, and now they are only seeking peace and tranquility. But the Torah finds it necessary to warn us: don’t think the battle for freedom is over! In some way, it has only just begun. In the biblical narrative the Israelites are about to have to fight for their survival. Battles with Amalek and Amon and Moav and the Caananites are going to take place in the years to come …

Our Torah portion ends with the imperative to remember Amalek, the first tribe who attacked the Israelites right after the exodus. Forgetting the Amalekites, or that resistance, and even war, is an immanent quality of God might have deprived the Jewish people, us, and the world of a valuable lesson: The Amalekites have emerged through the ages as the prototype for aggressive, dangerous human behavior. Understanding the consequences of such evil, and battling against it, may be critical for the survival of Judaism and all humankind.

The Torah, our Bagel, is very clear that there is darkness in the world, that war is part of it and that we need to be aware of it, or even to fight from time to time for our freedom. Do I like it? No, but as I said, a bagel is only a bagel because of the hole in it. Our Torah is only our Torah, because of all its teaching and our world is the only world we have – let’s make it a better place.

May we all be blessed with a long life to see a time coming with less violence, less hate, and less war in it.

A few weeks ago, the film Exodus – Kings and Gods was launched and, in anticipation of the upcoming Torah readings about the liberation of the Israelites from slavery, I decided to watch the movie. I wanted to see how the authors of the film interpreted the biblical narrative. I was disappointed in the film in so many ways. I never expected to see a movie that was close to the bible’s narrative, and/or to Jewish interpretation, but in my opinion the film’s only goal was to devalue the Bible. The filmmakers presented a crude idea of a shizophrenic Moses who caused Israel to become insane followers of a cruel, child-murdering God.This film is not the first attempt at finding scientific explanations for the 10 plagues, and to devalue Moses’ prophecy as a kind of mental delusion. Usually, I don’t mind these attempts, as long as they respect and don’t vilify those who have a different understanding of the Torah. Unfortuantely this film has no intention of doing so.Weiterlesen »